I Hit Reply All to Four Thousand People

It was my third day. I did not yet understand that the company had a single mailing list that reached every employee on three continents, and that it was named almost exactly like my new work friend Dave.

Dave had sent me a company-wide announcement about the annual charity bake sale. I typed back a private reply that was, I thought, a very funny observation about our director and his well-known obsession with a particular brand of protein bar. It had a joke, it had his name, and — because I was rushing — it had a spectacular typo that turned an innocent word into something much less innocent.

I hit send. The little confirmation appeared. Then my screen filled up. Not with one reply from Dave. With out-of-office auto-responses. Dozens. Then hundreds. From offices I had never heard of, in time zones I could not place. I had sent my private joke about the director, with the unfortunate typo, to four thousand people, including the director.